It took 10 years to rebuild Kobe after the earthquake in 1995, but that timeframe is now looking optimistic for the reconstruction needed along the north-eastern coastline of Japan. Two months ago, the black wave of the tsunami engulfed 16 towns, 95,000 buildings, 23 railway stations, hundreds of miles of road, railway tracks and sea walls. Over 60,000 acres of agricultural land were contaminated. It will take three years just to clear the debris.

In spite of the enormity of the task ahead, there are signs that Japan is moving away from disaster management. It may not be, however, politics as usual. Hauled over the coals, not least by his own party, for the way his government dealt with the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the embattled prime minister, Naoto Kan, has begun to make decisions which are political in nature. He ordered the temporary closure of Hamaoka – the nuclear plant which sits on an active faultline – while a new tsunami wall is built, and he has abandoned plans to build 14 reactors over the next 20 years, opting instead for a 20% increase in renewables.

This contrasts with the recommendation of Britain's climate change committee this week to increase reliance on nuclear energy. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is also considering a proposal that would cut the subsidy, through feed-in tariffs for generators of solar power. Disaster-stricken Japan is moving in the opposite direction, and it is brutally clear why. Over 80,000 people living within 12 miles of Fukushima have been forced out of their homes and it is far from clear when they will be able to return. Farmers have been forced to abandon their cows, or dump their milk. The compensation bill alone for the 50,000 families forced to leave the exclusion zone could be astronomical. Tepco may apologise deeply and profusely, but Japan's nuclear industry has lost the stranglehold it once had over the energy debate. There are no votes in trying to defend it now.

Stabilising Fukushima and building 70,000 temporary homes are immediate problems. But long-term answers will be just as significant. These are being sought by an ambitious team of philosophers and architects led by Makoto Iokibe, a former professor at Kobe university and someone determined not to repeat the same mistakes. Seeking higher ground for the new communities of the north-east is the least of their ideas. He talks of creative reconstruction – decentralising power away from Tokyo, a reconstruction tax, decreasing the wealth gap between urban and rural areas, creating a springboard for green energy. A truly radical approach will be resisted, but the debate itself has to be had.